Babyproof
by Giada Luna
Summary: The war is over, and the Konoha shinobi are facing a completely new challenge - being parents. Turns out parenting the new generation has some serious obstacles - even for the people who DON'T have kids! All of the kids from #700 will be in this story, as well as the canon pairings. See profile for cast of characters post #699, pre#700 Narutoverse when the Next Gen are tiny.
1. Chapter 1

_Ok, so here's the thing. I keep editing the real big stories, and these random plot bunnies just pop into my head. The only way to get rid of them is to write them down, I swear! Kishimoto owns all of the Narutoverse. I just have a rabbit problem._

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><p><strong>Babyproof<strong>

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><p>"You have to help us," Naruto says, his jaw in a hard line.<p>

"It's troublesome, but I think he is right," Shikamaru sighs.

"We really need you," Chōji offers, eyes wide with sincerity.

Uchiha Sasuke looks grave, and gives a "Hn."

"You can't possibly be serious," she eyes them all. "Are you just bored? Came into my shop to have a laugh? Get home to your wives," she scoffs dismissively, turning around before abruptly turning back. "No, you know what? I take that back. Business is slow. Buy something _expensive, _and then go back to your wives."

"But you don't understand," Naruto's eyes dart desperately between her and the three other men. "This is a serious problem."

She glares at Naruto. "Oh please," she rolls her eyes. You, I _might_ be able to understand, because Hinata is pregnant, and you are an idiot," she ignores his indignant reaction to her harsh phrase, "but the rest of you?" She narrows her eyes at Sasuke. You can't tell me Sakura hasn't handled this, or Temari is alright with this, or that Karui won't skin you alive, or that – hm,' she looks around – Ino must have things alright on her end

"On the contrary," Sai smiles brightly, entering the shop. "We are also in need of your help."

"And… our wives… sort of… sent us…" Chōji mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck.

Tenten looks at them all, and crosses her arms.

"Prove it," she says flatly.

"I have this," Sai says cheerily. "This is why I am late. I went to Kakashi, and he made this an official mission."

Tenten smothers a sigh and takes the scroll. Kakashi must either still be sore that she beat him at darts the other night, or he is just screwing with her.

Her eyes grow wide.

"An A class mission?" she asks, her mouth falling open, reading the scroll "'Reconnaissance, and tactical advisement; design and implement defensive apparati and jutsus as needed; Shikamaru, you are on here for strategy and tactical support, Sai for design, Uchiha for - what the hell _is _this, are we going to war?"

"You have no idea what we are up against," Naruto shudders, and they all look uncomfortable.

She pinches the bridge of her nose between her thumb and fore finger. "You are telling me," she says slowly. "That I've been assigned to lead an A class mission with the top Konoha nin of our generation for… oh I love this 'domestic security modifications to ensure the security of the following citizens of Konoha: Akimichi ChouChou, Nara, Shikadai, Uchiha Sarada, Uzumaki, Bolt, and Yamanaka Inojin?'"

They all nod.

"Guys," she eyes them all with a mix of disbelief, irritation and a healthy side of 'What-the-actual-fuck.'

"Babyproofing?!"

They nod again

"Why the hell is anything with babies an A class mission?" she asks in exasperation.

"You don't know these babies," Naruto grumbles.

"They are babies!" She exclaims. "They are tiny!

"Well actually," Chōji raises a finger, but Naruto interrupts

"But they are fast and smart as hell! It is becoming a real problem – they are getting into our equipment, our supplies, - all kinds of things!"

"Forget it," she slams the scroll on the counter. "I don't do kids, or didn't you notice I don't have any?" she stares them down. "I don't know the first place about what you would need or what to do, or-"

"Oi! Here you guys are!"

"Oh, just great," she mutters.

Kiba smirks and looks at Shino. "Looks like she heard about Kakashi's order."

"If you are here to be a jerk, Inuzuka," she says through clenched teeth, "I swear to you I will show you that your clan isn't the only one that can neuter things."

"Geez," he holds up his hands in surrender, "is that any way to talk to one of your mission partners?"

"Mission part-" she looks down at the order. She had stopped reading part way through, overwhelmed by the insanity of the whole situation.

"What the hell is 'preventative assessment and consulting?'"

Kiba shrugs. "Puppies aren't that much different than babies – at least when the puppies are ninken, and the babies are mini shinobi. Plus Hana has kids now. I've got lots of experience."

"Yeah, I heard," she says dryly, "But, funny, I don't see anything about cats on here, so I doubt I'll need that 'expertise' of yours."

He glowers at her while Shino coughs discretely and the other nin smirk or hide smiles.

"FASTER, LEE!"

"Hai, Gai-sensei!"

"You've _got_ to be kidding me," she groans, sinking onto the stool behind the counter and banging her forehead against it two or three times before hiding her head in her folded arms.

Lee and Gai come flying in the door, Lee, pushing Gai's wheelchair and skidding to a stop, almost taking out Uchiha, who is fast enough to move out of the way. Inuzuka gets his foot run over instead.

Tenten appreciates this.

"Tenten!" Gai booms, ever larger than life. "I hear that you are have been specially assigned to help safeguard the youth of this village!"

"What? No- look. There has been a mistake. This is a simple case of babyproofing, and you can all heigh-ho your happy asses down to a hardware store and buy those little lock closures, and outlet covers and whatever nonsense you need to keep your kids from playing 'let's swallow what's under the sink' or 'where does mommy hide her senbon.'"

"We tried," Naruto says forlornly. "Bolt jimmied all of the locks. And he keeps climbing things."

"All babies climb things," she mutters.

"Not the roof!"

"Chouchou busts through the doors," Chōji adds.

"Shikadai can sneak things out with shadows," Shikamaru says, bored. "He is pretty clever about the whole thing."

"Inojin draws fun little animals to go find things around the house. He then tries to mind control them into doing all sorts of interesting things," Sai contributes. "You can't imagine how creative he is!"

"Sarada picked all the locks," Sasuke grumbles. "She figured out how to bypass all of that useless junk weeks ago. She removed it and left it on the table for us and said she hoped we hadn't thrown out the original packaging so that we could return it."

"Toddlers," Tenten says flatly. "Your kids are teething and barely stumbling around, and they are breaking into your cabinets, or in Uchiha's case, knowledgeable about the finer points of consumer rights."

"Yes," Sai says with a tilt of his head and a cheery smile. "Even better than that, they are escaping from cribs, playpens, bedrooms, and at least once, Inojin tried to ride an ink creature out of a window."

"Bolt just jumped," Naruto mutters. "Nearly gave Hinata a heart attack."

"Chouchou and Shikadai ganged up when Karui was watching them. Broke into the snacks and food pills. Had to go to the hospital," Choji says, frowning at the memory.

"Who the hell keeps food pills where kids can get at them?" She asks, in frustration. "Even I know better than that, and I don't even have houseplants."

"That's just it," Choji fidgets. "They were in a special sealed location," Choji says, and she feels a bit sorry at the distress clear in his tone. "These kids found it, undid the jutsus, and managed to almost clear out the supply."

She almost falls for it.

She gives a quick shake of her head, and rolls up the mission scroll to hand it back. "Buy better storage, and hire nannies," Tenten instructs. "Or, hey, lock them somewhere until they turn, I don't know, Twenty? That should about do it."

"Ooooohhhhh, I get it," Kiba says, folding his arms across his chest. "You can't handle it."

Tenten narrows her eyes viciously at him, and lowers her voice. "What did you say?"

"I said," he leans forward, hands on the counter. "You. Can't. Handle. It. The Konoha Dragon will take on missing nin, set traps for dangerous criminals that she _says_ no one can beat, but she can't take on a few measly plans to keep toddlers from hurting themselves. What's the matter?" he asks innocently, before going in for the kill. "Out classed by the diaper brigade?"

"Kiba, that isn't true," Lee leaps to her defense. "Tenten is perfectly capable of doing whatever mission is assigned to her – we have total faith in her!"

"That's right!" Gai roars. "Tenten's SPIRIT OF YOUTH IS UNDAUNTED!" he declares, punching a fist into the air. "There is no way she will fail to protect the next generation!"

"Oh yeah?" Kiba asks easily, ignoring Tenten's death glare. He leans forward, hands still on the counter, grins a taunting, snaggletoothed grin, and with his nose two inches from hers offers the low challenge.

"Prove it."

She inhales sharply, her own words ringing in her ears. "Fine," she bites out. "Let's go see what your snot nosed ankle-biters can do," With that, she scoops up several scrolls, and sashays past them all. She tosses Lee the keys. "Lock up." She opens the door and arches an eyebrow at them all. "What do you want, an invitation? You coming or not?"

Lee's cheer seems to rouse them and they follow with varying degrees of relief and enthusiasm. Shikamaru looks at Kiba who is grinning smugly while Shino sighs heavily.

"Nice," he chuckles under his breath.

"I do what I can," he shrugs one shoulder, cocky grin in place.

"You gonna sit around all day, Inuzuka?" She calls back, hand on hip, "or you gonna put some money where that big mouth of yours is."

Shino and Nara smirk, and Kiba narrows his eyes at her. "Oh, it is _on._"

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><p><em>So... who wants to see the Konoha Next gen as ittybitties? Go on or leave it as a 'one-shot?'<em>


	2. Chapter 2

_I haven't had time to revisit this one much, but I finally got an update going. Kishimoto owns the Narutoverse._

_When last we met, Tenten agreed to head up an "A" rank mission to investigate and secure the safety of the new generation of shinobi.  
>She has since visited and observed Uzumaki Bolt, Uchiha Sarada, Akimichi ChoCho, Yamanaka Inojin, and Nara Shikadai. She has also since concluded that now might be a good time to accept that transfer to Suna...<em>

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><p><strong>Babyproof<br>Chapter Two**

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><p>Tenten drags herself into the bathhouse with a sneaking suspicion that she has never been more tired in her life.<p>

Thirty minutes into her first visit for the mission, she sent a message directly to Kakashi. Fifteen minutes after that, an ANBU member appeared and handed her a small scroll and said "I shall alert the others."

She had nodded grimly, and turned her attention back to watching Naruto chase after Bolt on the roof of their home.

She sinks into the warm water and looks to the various expressions of the women assembled; from Hinata's quiet concern, Sakura's sympathetic gaze, Ino's smug smile, Karui's guarded expression, and Temari's knowing smirk.

"How?" Tenten asks flatly.

Temari's eyebrow quirks. "How what?" she asks innocently.

Tenten narrows her eyes. "You know damn well what I mean," she retorts. "How the hell do you girls get anything done, and how are you not restrained somewhere in an asylum?"

"Oh," Temari and the other women exchange a variety of amused glances. "That."

"Yeah," Tenten snorts. "'That.' Between your kids and your husbands, you should all be listed on a monument somewhere as heroes of life after the Fourth Shinobi War." She rubs her temples. "Kakashi and I are so going to have words."

"Looks like he knows," Ino leans back happily in the water. "Why else would he have assigned us all to a mission that required the bath house to shut down for our use only today?"

"Because I threatened him?" Tenten offers.

"That probably had something to do with it," Sakura smiles impishly, "but knowing Kakashi, he had this planned ahead of time."

"I am never playing him in darts again," Tenten mutters. "Either that, or the next time we play, I am going to beat him so badly, he'll never play ME in darts again."

"This doesn't have anything to do with darts," Karui crosses her arms awkwardly, still getting used to her post-baby larger chest. "We sent word to Kakashi before we sent the boys to you."

Tenten frowned. "I thought Sai went to tell Kakashi."

"He did," Ino's look is far too innocent. "And I sent him."

"So you're all in on this," Tenten asked them, mouth hanging open and eyes wide as they all nod in turn. "What the hell, girls?" she sputters. "When did I piss you off that much? What did I do?"

"Nothing," Hinata is quick to assure her.

"We actually do need your help," Ino adds.

Tenten's looks wildly between them all, as if waiting for someone to say it is all a joke, or to accuse her of some egregious wrongdoing meriting this level of retaliation.

"Okay," Temari levels. "Here's the deal."

Tenten looks over to the eldest of their circle of friends, for whom she has a pretty high regard, inspite of or perhaps because of their rocky introduction all of those years ago.

"What the boys told you is 100% true. We sent them, and we need your help. Three months ago it was just the five of us tearing our hair out and trying to adapt to our kids getting older and into more things. Two months ago, our husbands all told us we were crazy. No," Temari puts up her hands. "I take that back. Naruto said he was sure Hinata could handle it, Uchiha was too smart to call Sakura crazy, but did seem to think she was exaggerating and is only alive because he left the village, Sai almost got beheaded by Ino, so I won't go into that, Shikamaru predictably told me that I was troublesome, and Chōji immediately asked Karui what he could do to help, which pissed her off because she always wants to do things herself."

"That's-" Karui sits up, sputtering in protest.

"Absolutely true," Temari interrupts her dismissively. "So one month and three weeks ago, we all took a step back."

"You what, now?" Tenten's eyes grow wider.

"Nothing major," Temari admits. "We still had our eye on things, but the only way the boys would believe us is if they had to see it and deal with it first-hand."

"Didn't they have missions?" Tenten asks. "I mean, that is why they weren't there in the first place, right?"

"Sure they did," Ino's grin is slow and wicked. "They just didn't realize that Kakashi had reassigned all of them to Konoha at our request."

"What?" Tenten gasps, not too sure whether to laugh or be amazed. "Are you serious?!"

"As severe chakra depletion," Sakura's eyes glint. "Kakashi gave them all missions that required them to stay in the village, and we all had assignments that required us to be away from home more in the day. Ino and I have been needed at the hospital," she looked to the blonde who nodded sagely.

"And Karui and I have been needed as liaisons to Suna and Kumo," Temari added as Karui smirked.

"It is surprising how many clan matters have come up recently," Hinata adds with a shrug and a small smile.

Tenten stares at her friends in disbelief.

"That's…. that's…."

"Brilliant?" Ino asks with a smirk.

"I was going to go with devious," Tenten admits, "But yeah, brilliant works. Which of you actually came up with this?"

All of the girls look over to Temari.

Tenten eyes her suspiciously. "I should've known."

"I can't take all of the credit," She sighs contentedly, leaning back in the water. "I had advice from one of the smartest people in the Land of Fire."

"At this point, I can't even guess," Tenten stretches her legs.

"My mother-in-law," Temari grins. "Turns out that she had been trying to tell Shikamaru some of what he and Chōji and Ino used to get into, but he wasn't listening."

"So why didn't the rest of you ask your parents or the older adults in your clans?" Tenten asks, curious.

"Have you met my mother?" Sakura grumbles. "If I bring her into this, I'll never get her _out_ of it. Besides," she continued. "My parents are civilians. I'm not an offspring from an elite clan – the kind of grief I gave my parents didn't require intervention by a weapons specialist on the orders of the Hokage."

Hinata's eyes are downcast. "My mother isn't here," she says quietly, "but I already spoke with some of the older mothers in our clan. It seems Bolt has a bit more Uzumaki in him than Huyga."

Tenten makes a derisive sound. "I don't know about that. Ever try to talk Neji out of doing something that he was set on doing? He gave Naruto the same look when he refused to budge from the roof."

"See, this is why we need you," Ino chimes in, happily. "You are involved, but you aren't _involved_. You can talk to Yoshino and the Akimichi's and the Haruno's and members of mine and Hinata's clans, and they will tell you what you need to _know_ not what you have to _do_."

"There is a difference?" Tenten asks helplessly.

"Huge," Ino stresses the word. "And chances are, if you are the one saying it - framing it as post-investigative strategy and not advice - the boys will actually _listen_ for once."

"The only person who listens to me is Lee," Tenten says flatly, "and he doesn't do it well."

"But again," Sakura chimes in, "you are an outside source, but close enough that they all trust you. And you really are more than capable of creating whatever it is we need to create. Think of it as setting traps – no one beats you at that."

"Traps aren't meant to deter," Tenten counters. "They are meant to TRAP. And do you realize how many of my traps maim, poison, or explode?"

"That is why you are going to talk to the older generation first," Temari says, all business. "Take what you saw today as a baseline. See if any of there is any overlap in the issues and behaviors you observed, and the kinds of antics they expect. Also, ask them about scenarios yet to come. Then come and talk to us again; we will give you specifics regarding our children and our homes. Analyze the data – Shikamaru and Sasuke will be a large help there. Once you have an idea of the actual issues, and patterns of behavior, you can decide what needs to be addressed and/or prevented and strategize accordingly. Sai is an excellent resource for design, Chōji is very practical, Shino and Kiba know what to look for, and if it is something that Naruto can't break, you win." She shrugs. "Easy."

"Easy?" Tenten echoes with an arched eyebrow.

"Sure," Temari smiles confidently. "Just make sure your preventative measures aren't lethal."

"You mean 'aren't harmful,' don't you?" Hinata's quiet voice holds a note of amusement, and of warning.

"Don't worry," Tenten gives a small smile to Hinata. "I wouldn't let anyone get hurt. Well, I can't guarantee Kiba will survive the experience, but I'll keep the kids safe."

"That is why Shino is there," Temari says nonchalantly. "He'll keep Kiba in line."

"And he really does have a good sense for the kids," Hinata offers.

"That reminds me," Temari adds. "Tsume and Hana are around, too. And Kurenai. They are part of the older consulting panel."

"What about Sasuke," Tenten frowns. "There aren't any Uchiha's left."

"Tsunade-sama," Sakura interjects. "Both she and Kakashi are points of contact for any Uchiha or Sharingan related questions."

"Sarada has the Sharingan?" Tenten asks, mind suddenly racing with a laundry list of problems that variable can make.

"Not yet," Sakura says with a relief and gratitude in her tone that Tenten doesn't quite understand, "but it is still something to take into consideration."

"Fine," she sighs in defeat. "I know when I'm beat."

A cheer goes up from the women in the bath, and Temari gives her a wink and a playful punch to the arm. "Atta girl!"

"Well one thing is for sure," Tenten grumbles. "I don't know about your homes, but after all of this, I'm sure as hell going to be babyproof."

"Stranger things have happened," Sakura shrugs.

"Well me having kids isn't one of them," Tenten sinks into the water. "Let's just see what we can do about getting yours safely to academy age. Then they are Shino's problem."

Tenten closes her eyes as she tries to relax in the hot water, and misses another exchange of triumphant and knowing glances between her friends that absolutely would have had her taking up that transfer to Suna.

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><p><em>Thanks for reading, friends! <em>

_ -Giada_


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